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Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

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Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#221

Post by sanderjd »

cat199 wrote: post #213
sanderjd wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that you just made the argument for the opposition. We know that Ellison was successful in a business that involved selling big contracts to a small number of purchasers spending from a budget of company or taxpayer money. But that's not Tesla's business. Does Ellison know how to sell to individuals spending large amounts of their own money on a product with lots of similar competitors? Maybe? But he d…

> Does Ellison know how to sell to individuals spending large amounts of their own money on a product with lots of similar competitors? are you buying a battery-backed electric power storage substation? didn't think so.. tesla isn't just about cars which isn't to say i like musk or ellison

Hmm, that's a good point. I'm definitely more bullish on their power storage business, so if Ellison pushes them further that direction since it's more similar to the kind of business he knows, then maybe that's a good idea. Maybe Tesla is also big enough at this point to support multiple divisions with different customer bases and business models.

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#222

Post by krapp »

adventured wrote: post #153
dpkonofa wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really depends on what your definition of "flourish" is. The United States is really the only country that has "flourished" under a capitalist system and that's only if you define that through the definition of capitalism which is to say that there is more capital in the US than in other nations. Attributing that to capitalism, though, and not to years and years of industrial progress, human slavery, and, arguab…

There are no affluent, liberal Democracies that do not utilize a free market based economic system, ie some formulation of Capitalism. Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Netherlands. Five of the wealthiest countries on earth, and generally considered five of the best to live in. None of those are Socialist systems. They all use the free market as the basis of their economic systems. Some with more or less government r…

>Some with more or less government regulation, and with varying degrees of a welfare state.

The existence of government regulation means these countries do not have free markets, and all welfare programs are socialist in that they involve the government taking wealth from the people through taxation and redistributing it to those who haven't earned it by trading their labor.

>That is impossible under any implementation of Socialism, which requires state ownership of the means of production and does not allow such accumulation of private wealth.

You seem to have communism and socialism confused here, and you seem to be failing to see that socialism and capitalism exist on a spectrum, and most countries don't practice one or the other, but a mix of both.

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#223

Post by Sniffnoy »

MikeCapone wrote: post #67
rossdavidh wrote: post #48

After his failure, as virtually the only Theranos board member with a high-tech background, to provide any good advice on tech development to Elizabeth Holmes, this seemed incredible to me. Then, I read this in the statement: "Larry is also a big believer in Tesla’s mission, having purchased 3 million shares earlier this year." So, Musk was required to introduce more outside independence to his board, per agreement w…

Owning shares is not a negative. It's a positive. It means that he's more aligned with shareholders than with management. Boards full of non-shareholders tend to prioritize the paycheck they get as board members, so they tend to not want to rock the boat or get into conflicts with mangement. Those that are shareholders first tend to have a bigger incentive to confront or fire management if they start doing things tha…

Yeah, but this is Larry Ellison we're talking about. Do you want to trust his idea of "good for shareholders"?

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#224

Post by zepearl »

pas wrote: post #212
zepearl wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I hear those names I personally link immediately Elon Musk to "genuinely enthusiastic & a bit crazy", but in the case of Larry Ellison I get only "dark side"-thoughts... .

I'd still want to know his opinions. With great knowledge comes great power, and thus responsibility.

I think that Larry was so far only in Iron Man (http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/mp/G9UGuzVE1g-l.jpg), not in Spider-Man movies => so, sorry, he's most probably not carrying such a huge ethical burden :)

Edit: I would be absolutely interested in hearing Larry's wished next steps, but I don't think that board members usually release statements (I think that they only "steer" the CEO, help "facilitating" whenever issues arise and perform overseeing activities), right?

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#225

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

zepearl wrote: post #202
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But he was tenacious; he would never give up on anything. To be fair, in my mind this is the one most common trait I find in successful entrepreneurs and leaders. I've seen leaders who I didn't think were particularly bright, or extroverted, or empathic, but man, did they not get stressed out by obstacles that came in their way. They either sidestepped them or overcame them, but they did not dwell on them and let t…

I agree but I'd like to add that in my opinion "successful" is probably quite risky to use in general, meaning that there are multiple levels (e.g. successful for yourself, for the company/government, for the investors/people, for the future maintainability, etc...) and timelines (e.g. now, in 1 year, in 10 years, ...). For example Stephen Elop can probably be considered "successful" as having managed to be CEO of No…

Agreed. I was referring to people that are able to get to the top of their games because they are able to "get shit done." Whether that shit is good or bad is another issue entirely.

Without getting too political, take Donald Trump, who in my mind kind of exemplifies this definition of success. Whatever your thoughts about Trump, he's definitely not lazy, and his early morning tweet storms seem to signify that he gets by on little to no sleep. Of course, he may cause WWIII in the process.

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#226

Post by startupdiscuss »

zepearl wrote: post #203
MikeCapone wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owning shares is not a negative. It's a positive. It means that he's more aligned with shareholders than with management. Boards full of non-shareholders tend to prioritize the paycheck they get as board members, so they tend to not want to rock the boat or get into conflicts with mangement. Those that are shareholders first tend to have a bigger incentive to confront or fire management if they start doing things tha…

Does this mean that a company should use somebody who owns a lot of shares during bad times (when some drastic measure is needed to bring the company back into profitability), and normal paycheck-people during normal times (to ensure that no big risk is taken without reason)? (genuinely asking)

confused as to why someone who owns a lot of shares would want to take a "big risk" "without reason" during "normal times."

Wouldn't a person with a lot of stock not want to take a big risk without reason at any time?

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#227

Post by narrator »

scirocco wrote: post #201
ElijahLynn wrote: post #196

In my eyes, Larry Ellison on the Tesla BoD just damaged the brand of Tesla by an order of magnitude.

Larry's first day with the board: "Let's introduce audits to catch drivers tuning their cars!"

Larry's second day:let's introduce a pricing model that confuses customers, nickels and dimes them constantly and requires enormously expensive upgrades to do things the current car and all our competitors already do for free.

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#229

Post by Isinlor »

martythemaniak wrote: post #216
azhenley wrote: post #16

A lot of people seem negative about this. Can someone explain why? Are there any implications I should expect (as a Tesla owner and stockholder)?

This is just the weekly Tesla hate thread. You will see this sort of negativity around essentially every Tesla-related news item. It's actually an improvement over the near-daily nature of these threads from earlier this year. To answer your question, this changes nothing. He's been a major shareholder for a long time and now he's 1 out of 11 board members.

I'm a fan of Tesla. And it's not about Tesla now. It's about Larry Elison and Oracle. Oracle is the definition of evil in IT. Tesla has a lot of fans among IT people. IT people hate Oracle, and with good reasons. Read around here for examples.

I hate Oracle too. But I agree, it probably will have little to no impact.

Still, just thinking about Larry Elison makes me like Tesla a little bit less. Brr...

Re: Tesla Adds Larry Ellison and Kathleen Wilson-Thompson as Board Directors

#230

Post by dmode »

dotancohen wrote: post #215
ElijahLynn wrote: post #196

In my eyes, Larry Ellison on the Tesla BoD just damaged the brand of Tesla by an order of magnitude.

My thoughts exactly. I've lusted over the Model S for years, and the minute that they become available in my country I'll be the first in line. But, now that means doing business with a company owned by One Real Asshole Called Larry Ellison? I wouldn't dare. The way his most well-known company treats its clients is so grotesque that I wouldn't even want to work at a company that uses its products. They are extremely…

Tesla is not “owned” by Larry Ellison. He is just one among many directors in the board, who have a limited set of responsibility to advocate for shareholders and provide corporate governance. They don’t really play major role in execution let alone ownership. Tesla is a public company and is owned by shareholders.
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